“Bursting at the Seams”: the 2007 Reith Lectures

This year's annual Reith Lectures deal with the problems the planet is facing …

One significant advantage, in my mind, of the BBC over a commercial broadcaster is that Auntie Beeb has a duty to the public rather than to its advertisers. The fact that their sole concern is not the quest for ever higher ratings allows the BBC to devote a certain amount of time towards educating and informing, as well as just entertaining.

Central to this mission was Lord Reith. The first Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation (he was previously head of its predecessor, the British Broadcasting Company), Reith understood that the BBC could have a positive role to play in British society. In this spirit, the BBC has had a yearly series of lectures in Reith's name, given by a distinguished thinker on important topics of the day. The first Reith Lectures were given by Bertrand Russell in 1948 on "Authority and the Individual," and this year's are by the economist Jeffery Sachs, entitled "Bursting at the Seams."

The lectures deal with the enormous problems the planet is facing, as the global population looks set to increase by 50 percent in the next five decades. With China, India and other developing nations seeking to raise their living standards to rival those in the developed world, whose consumption of energy and resources is already well past the point of sustainability, Prof. Sachs presents an interesting, if chilling picture of the world we will soon find ourselves living in. Yet he tempers this message with optimism, confident that technology and communal common sense will come to rescue.

I'm not certain I share his optimism, but if you've got an hour each week to spend, listening to the 2007 Reith Lectures is not a bad use of that time.

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